Pakistan’s Information Minister Sherry Rehman formally handed over her resignation to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday in another serious rupture with the ruling PPP after the earlier resignation by party stalwart Raza Rabbani. Gilani accepted Rehman’s resignation and moved Qamruzzaman Qaira to her position, official APP news agency reported.

Sherry had a bitter altercation with two government hawks - interior adviser Rehman Malik and Punjab governor Salman Taseer - during a meeting at the Presidency on Friday while President Asif Zardari was discussing the strategy to counter the current standoff with lawyers and PML-N who plan a long march on Monday. Malik and Taseer advocated tough measures against electronic media blaming it for fanning the present anti-government agitation by lawyers and political parties.

Informed sources told this correspondent that Malik accused Sherry of leniency towards the press and asked Zardari to put the PEMRA, a regulatory body for electronic media, under his ministry’s control instead of the information department. He pleaded for a crack down on errant channels and anchors to suppress dissent.

Sherry opposed these suggestions and expressed the apprehension that government would further aggravate the situation by antagonising the media.

Zardari was reported to be generally inclined to favour Malik and Taseer at which Sherry left the meeting. He was particularly furious at Geo TV that has been reproducing footages showing Benazir expressing support to the reinstatement of Justice Iftikar.

Sherry, a former editor, who has been in the forefront of Pakistani journalists’ struggle for press freedom, also voiced her strong protest against insults and humiliation hurled at a leading human rights activist by PPP ministers and leaders during TV discussions.

Meanwhile, Geo TV claimed that its transmissions had been disrupted across the country on orders from Presidnt Zardari. Another disgruntled PPP pair, Naheed Khan, Benazir Bhutto’s political secretary and her spouse Senator Safdar Abbas addressed Rawalpindi Bar on Satuday and criticised Zardari for pursuing anti-people policies that seriously undermined PPP’s popularity.

The dissenting PPP leaders including Rabani, Sherry and Naheed were very close to Bhutto and are regarded as loyalists to the party’s populist ideology. Zardari has been contemptuously referring to them as ‘BB baggage’.

Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif on Saturday said he was ready for reconciliation but somebody would have to underwrite President Asif Ali Zardari’s pledges.

“There can be no dialogue with Mr Zardari,” Sharif told senior journalists in Lahore adding,”The problem is who will guarantee Mr Zardari’s commitments, which he breaks with impunity.”

Sharif did not directly deny or confirm about Shahbaz Sharif’s mysterious trip to Lahore after midnight on Friday.

This correspondent travelled in the same plane, which was delayed for nearly three hours, apparently to readjust seats and camouflage the midnight trip. Though a PIA steward said he also exchanged greetings with the former Chief Minister though Shahbaz Sharif alighted the plane and later disembarked in Islamabad quietly. He reportedly returned to Lahore early Saturday morning. Some media reports said Shahbaz met Prime Minister Gilani on arrival but the PPP sources denied the report.

Nawaz told journalists in Raiwind the PML-N was determined to fully participate in the long march on Monday. Nawaz said he was ready for reconciliation but who would take the guarantee of President Zardari since he had earlier denied he wanted to become the President but later changed his mind.

Sharif said Prime Minister Gilani should come forward and end the present political deadlock. He assured the Prime Minister of his full support.

The PML-N chief said no offer had been made by Zardari for talks.

Replying to a question regarding Shahbaz’ mysterious midnight trip to Islamabad, he cryptically said Shahbaz was at Raiwind. Nawaz said the President should take the nation into confidence and he still wanted reconciliation.

The PML-N chief said he wanted the government to complete its five-year term but President Zardari must honour his commitments he made to the nation. Replying to a question, Nawaz said he was not aware of any role by the army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to help resolve the present political imbroglio.

Nawaz termed the appointment of new judges by Zardari a violation of the Charter of Democracy (CoD) saying the PPP should honour the charter. He held Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer responsible for the present state of crisis.

Islamabad, March 14
Hopes for a compromise between the Pakistani government and its protesting opponents faded today with President Asif Ali Zardari refusing to cave in to pressure, a senior government official said.

A protest campaign by lawyers and opposition parties for an independent judiciary threatens to bring turmoil to nuclear-armed Pakistan as its year-old civilian government struggles to stem surging Islamist militancy and to revive a flagging economy.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has been promoting a compromise package involving concessions to the main opposition party, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and the judiciary.

But Zardari, widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was standing firm, at least until after the climax early next week of a nationwide long march protest by lawyers and opposition activists.

“From what I know, President Zardari has made it clear: ‘I am not going to negotiate under pressure. Sharif has to abandon the long march’,” said a senior government official, who declined to be identified.

The News newspaper said Zardari had rejected a compromise package backed by the United States and Britain, whose top diplomats have consulted both sides in recent days.

Zardari would only consider the reconciliation formula after Monday, when the long march is due to climax with a sit-in outside parliament in Islamabad, the newspaper said. — Reuters

Colombo, March 14
At least 18 LTTE rebels were killed as Sri Lankan troops stepped up offensive in Puthukkudirippu town to flush out the Tigers from their last remaining stronghold in the embattled North, officials said today.

“Soldiers collected 18 bodies of LTTE cadres, 17 T-56 riffles, one light machine gun, and two radio communication sets following the clashes erupted yesterday in the Irnapali North, and Kombavil East areas, in Puthukkuddyiruppu,” the Defence Ministry said.

Lankan soldiers continued to battle the LTTE in the hinterlands of Puthukkudirippu in the Mullaitivu district in the embattled North of the country yesterday, liberating more territory and pushing the rebels to their last standoff.

“Sri Lankan soldiers of 58 Division of the Army now engaged in the final phase of the counter terrorist offensive in the Island’s Northern province continues to give heavy beating to the LTTE,” the Ministry added.

The body of a female LTTE cadre and a stock of military items in the Pudukudirripu area was also recovered yesterday.

Meanwhile, soldiers rescued 58 civilians under LTTE areas from the Kombavil East area in Mullaittivu district.

“Among the civilians, there were several LTTE cadres who identified themselves as the members of Makkal Padai band,” the ministry said. — PTI

Chengdu (China), March 14
Paramilitary and plainclothes police blanketed Lhasa with patrols and checkpoints today, imposing what witnesses called a tense calm on the anniversary of a violent anti-Chinese riot in the Tibetan capital.

Lhasa residents said the police with rifles or batons marched around the Jokhang Temple and the adjacent Barkhor Square in the old city, where rioters ran rampant last year. A Hong Kong tourist said two military helicopters hovered over the city in the morning, a rare sight, and that officers demanded to see identification at checkpoints.

“I was constantly stopped for identity check in the past few days,” said the tourist, who only wanted to be identified by his surname, Chu, because of the heavy security. “I was stopped twice last night on my way back to my hotel from dinner. They were just several hundred meters (yards) apart.”

The riot had erupted on March 14, 2008, after four days of largely peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks that called on China to allow the exiled Dalai Lama to return. Tibetans torched and ransacked Chinese businesses.

The violence touched off protests in Tibetan communities across western China that sputtered on for weeks, the largest uprising against Chinese rule in decades. In response, China smothered the area with armed police, who have been kept in the region ever since. — AP

Toronto, March 14
Indo-Canadian MP Ruby Dhalla, listed third on the list of the sexiest women politicians in the world by Maxim magazine, is in the centre of a steamy controversy.

Dhalla, who is the MP from the Brampton-Springdale constituency on the outskirts of Toronto, is in a legal battle to stop distribution of DVDs of a Bollywood movie she acted in 2003 before her election to parliament.

In the film “Kyon Kis Liye”, Dhalla is shown in some steamy scenes with the film’s producer and co-star Charanjit Sihra.

The 35-year-old Dhalla says the scenes in the film, and distribution posters for DVDs have been “doctored” to malign her.

The film was shot at Hamilton near here and is based on the local Sukhinder Dhillon murder case in which the wife was poisoned by her husband to collect insurance money. It was shown in Toronto and India.

Now the producer wants to distribute DVDs of the film to wider audiences.

But Dhalla has mounted a legal challenge to stop it. A 1993 Miss India-Canada runner-up, Dhalla claims she is being misrepresented through objectionable scenes. “...they put my face on someone else’s body, in clothes I never wore,” she told a local daily.

In a statement from her constituency, Dhalla maintained: “The producers have super-imposed and doctored images of myself for their personal opportunistic gain. Despite notices from lawyers to immediately cease and desist, the producers continue to use my name, image and involvement without my consent. I have worked extremely hard to get to where I am and will not be exploited by individuals. I have taken and will continue to take all necessary legal action to stop this opportunism, defamation, slander and exploitation by the producers.” But producer and co-star Charanjit Sihra, who owns a body shop in Hamilton, said Dhalla had given her consent in writing to the distribution of the film DVDs.

Nothing has been doctored, he told a local paper in Hamilton city.

“That is her. That is her body. That is her face,” he said. He said there was “nothing sexual” in the film. “Her mother was there every day (during the shooting of the film) ... there is no nudity or sex,” he said.

He said, “She wanted to be in Bollywood films...she had a passion for the movie, but she’s a politician now and doesn’t want the DVD of the film released.” Sihra said he had first met Dhalla in 1993 after she became a runner-up in the Miss Canada-India beauty contest. — IANS

BRIEFLY

US to skip NATO meet
WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates will skip a NATO summit next month to focus on the defence budget, a Pentagon spokesman said on Friday. “Secretary Gates will not be travelling to the NATO summit next month as originally planned," said Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for the defence department. Deputy Comptroller Kevin Scheid said on Wednesday the Pentagon was examining a range of options to trim its procurement spending by about 2 per cent to 3 per cent in its budget for fiscal 2010 that begins October 1. — Reuters

Sudan aid workers alive
MANILA: Three Red Cross workers kidnapped in the southern Philippines contacted the international aid group for the first time in nearly three weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. Nearly two months ago, gunmen belonging to the Abu Sayyaf group kidnapped the ICRC workers -Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipina Mary Jean Lacaba. “It was very good to speak with all three and know that they are together,” Alain Aeschlimann, ICRC’s head of operations for East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement dated March 13 on the group’s website. —Reuters

Mall fire raises alarms
DHAKA: Hundreds of security forces cordoned off Bangladesh’s largest shopping mall on Saturday after a fire engulfed its top floors, killing at least seven people and raising new questions about safety in the country. Dozens of people were injured in the blaze that started on a top floor of the 21-storey building and soon spread to the others whipped by the wind on Friday. The blaze could not be controlled quickly due to a lack of required safety tools available to the government’s fire services department, officials said. — Reuters

WSJ scribe taken to court
SINGAPORE: The Singapore government is taking legal action against a senior editor of the Wall Street Journal, accusing her of being in contempt of court for three articles published last year, the Straits Times newspaper reported today. The newspaper said Justice Tay Yong Kwang granted an application by the Attorney-General to start proceedings against Melanie Kirkpatrick, the deputy editor of the New York-based financial daily’s editorial page. — Reuters

STROBE LIGHTS

MJ still drawing crowds
LONDON: Pop superstar Michael Jackson, who is working on his comeback, has sold tickets for 50 concerts in just four hours. Hundreds of fans lined up and all 7,50,000 tickets were sold, the sun.co.uk reported on Saturday. The AEG Live promoter Randy Phillips said: “That wasn’t anticipated. We never thought it would be 50 shows and, frankly, based on the queues on Ticketmaster, plus the 3,00,000 registrants we still haven’t issued codes to, we could spend two years here.” — IANS

Watch Pixies live
LONDON: Cult US rock band the Pixies will be one of the headline acts at the Isle of Wight musical festival this summer, organisers have said. The band, famed for its indie rock style that inspired Nirvana among others, will give their first live performance in Britain in more than four years. The Isle of Wight festival, which runs from June 12-14, will be the Pixies’ only performance in Britain, organisers said. — Reuters

‘It’ as horror flick
LONDON: Stephen King’s ‘It’ is all set to be made into a film by Warner Brothers. The 1968 book will be adapted into the movie by “The Invasion” screenwriter Dave Kajganich, the Hollywood Reporter said. The book is about a group of adults, who reunite for a fight against the evil, who terrorised them in their childhood, the contactmusic reported. The horror classic, with over 1,100 pages, had earlier been considered unfilmable. However, Tommy Lee Wallace adapted it for a mini series for ABC in 1990. — PTI